. . . Joe Sixpack out there isn't even going to hear a tenth of the crap you all are spewing. We're talking about an electorate that hears only sound bites, the morons that keep Jerry Springer and all the reality shows on the air.

While thinking about this reply, I was curious about the voter turnout in the 2000 election. The chart that link points to shows that just under a quarter of the elegible population doesn't even bother to register. Only 2/3 of registered voters cast a ballot.

The last number, in the lower right corner, says it all: nearly half of America doesn't give a shit. It's a damn shame, but it's not a surprise.

For a bunch of intellectuals to waste all this emotion trying to figure out what these morons will do on election day is an exercise in futility.

Yeah, Art, it is. But still we try (and what you said is equally applicable to the pundits and pollsters in the larger world as to the folks here). In fact, I'm going to indulge in a little, right now.

Of the 50% who will actually get off their asses and get to the polls, I'll bet most of them decided long before either convention, either for Bush, or Anybody But, and cannot be persuaded otherwise . . . and the remainder will vote with their guts, too, not their brains.

It seems to me that the people (here and elsewhere) who so readily foam at the mouth about what may or may not have happened 30+ years ago have lost all ability to understand that an election -- any election -- is about the future, not the past.

Meanwhile, a lot of what's been going on here seems like the Springer show to me...